There have been proposed various techniques for performing tone correction on a luminance component of a video signal, thereby to make video clearly visible. Tone correction is made based on, for example, a histogram of luminance of video.
Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2007-36946 discloses a video signal processing apparatus which performs a frequency conversion process on the histogram of luminance, and performs a non-linear correction process on a video signal based on the processed histogram of luminance. In this video signal processing apparatus, the range of control of the tone correction process on the luminance is made variable by the frequency conversion process on the histogram of luminance.
In the meantime, in some cases, a video content of, e.g. a television broadcast program includes video in which the luminance level of a black pixel is set to be higher than a pedestal level. With respect to such video including a dark scene, the viewer may possibly perceive black-floating in displayed video. The viewer may have unnaturalness in viewing a dark region in the video, which is displayed not in jet black, but is displayed rather light.